by Born, Jason
“Well you did what you thought I’d want,” deflected the bear of a man, surprising everyone. “Gundahar, get more scouts out on each bank of the river. Send some back downstream to get a count of their force. I don’t care if you need fifty men, but get them out and back to me in a hurry!”
“What will you have me do, Adalbern?” asked Stigr as he tried to demonstrate loyalty and avoid a spear thrust from one of the Sugambrian soldiers.
“You stay with Berengar and his men. Find me two places, boy. Find me a hill that we may defend. Also find me a route of escape if the Romans have come in force to meet us.”
The boy didn’t immediately move, but adjusted his weight on the blanket that sat on his horse’s back. “I said go!” shouted Adalbern.
“Yes, father, but shall we not prepare to ambush the ambushers?”
“Boy, you are speaking your nonsense out of turn. Remember it wasn’t so long ago that the priestess dipped your naked little ass in the frozen lake the day you sprung from my Dorthe’s loins. You still had a cord tying off your umbilicus then.”
One of the Sugambrian elders intervened. “I’d like to hear what the boy has to say, Adalbern. We defer to you for a decision in a time of war, but . . .”
“I’ve made my decision!”
“But we must know if we’ve got other options. Now talk, boy,” said the nobleman.
Berengar looked to his father who nodded. “Just upstream we passed a sharp curve. As the Romans paddle up through the curve, the river narrows into a deep channel. Just after the curve we may be able to drop trees across the Amisia to halt their foremost boats’ progress.”
The nobleman took up the cause, “And we slaughter them in the narrows!”
Stigr added, “We can even have some trees ready to drop behind them. If we crush some of them, so what? Then their fleet will be trapped.”
The other men all eagerly grunted their approval of the idea. Adalbern answered, “Or we’ll be crushed by some infantry because of our loitering on the banks.” The big man spit out a piece of bark he’d been chewing on. “By Teiwaz! We’ll kill the bastards or ourselves. Cut the trees, boy.”
Berengar smiled and smacked his horse’s rump. Stigr kicked his own beast in order to follow the boy.
“That boy will see me dead, someday,” grunted his father, who shook his head with a mix of pride and frustration.
. . .
The scouts had returned and said that there were no signs of a land army coming along the east side. The west side, however, had a small force of Frisians marching along the banks. This hapless bunch was at least a day behind the faster moving ships. The wood elves had smiled on Adalbern’s mass of Sugambrians with their smattering of Chaucian allies.
Berengar had ten great trees felled across the river upstream from the curve. He used ropes tied off to horses, wrapped around smooth nearby trees for leverage, to stack them in a manner so that the Romans wouldn’t easily dislodge them. He sent Stigr, who was very enthusiastic about the plan, some way downriver to tie off and chop several more trees. When the battle commenced, Berengar said, Stigr was to have his men cut the rope tie-offs with their axes. Then the Romans could be killed like an eel in a bucket.
When the blockades were thus prepared, twenty men who were unafraid of the deep, dark waters of the Amisia picked their way out to hide themselves on the upstream barricade. Berengar suggested that they divide the rest of the men between both sides of the river, but Adalbern overruled him in this idea. The old man feared that if the Romans were successful at landing their host they could cut down his army in a piecemeal fashion. There would be safety in numbers, the warlord had said. The other nobles nodded their agreement with the great bear. The boy still had some tricks to learn about making war.
Then Berengar and the others crouched along the river to wait for their quarry to enter their trap. They wouldn’t have to wait long.
. . .
A host of shouts from ahead were immediately followed by a great crack that echoed throughout the river’s valley. The crack was quickly chased away by a massive crash. Then mayhem came from the vanguard.
Septimus was in the second line of ships that paddled up the Amisia, two abreast. His captain was wise enough to call to the men to cease their rowing when the commotion erupted. As their prow crested the bend, the captain further commanded the men to row backward to stop their motion altogether. It was too little too late, however.
The centurion’s ship and its twin collided with the two ships in the fore that had already smashed into a dam of logs set in their path. Wild tribesmen were pouring onto these front two vessels, hacking stunned legionaries, still seated, as they went. The poor oarsmen in these disabled vessels scrambled helplessly to gather weapons that had been removed from their belts to make their rowing easier. Spears and arrows hurtled in from the eastern bank at all the ships. Many of his comrades fell to the decks moaning as blood poured from gaping wounds in their necks and faces.
Septimus took just a moment to peer back at the long line of ships. What he saw brought him much worry. Drusus’ flagship, in the center of the line, was already receiving countless spears and javelins up over the hull. Further back, he saw more great trees fall into the river. One of them struck the center of a ship, driving it and ten men to the bottom at once.
He was brought back to the immediate action when the ships behind him thumped into his stern, nearly knocking the centurion off his feet. Septimus had to begin to organize his men or they would all be killed. He was utterly confident in his ability to fight the Germans on land, but he was not sure how to fight them as the planks beneath him buffeted with the river’s current and the chain reaction of strikes coming from ships all down the line.
. . .
They would triumph. Berengar could see that.
He had been among the first to spring from the logs sitting across the river. Begrudgingly, he allowed five other men to go before him. They simply had more size and strength for the initial strike. But in moments he was swinging his small sword wildly, putting merely wounded Romans out of their misery so they could not rise up and attack his men from the rear.
“Send more men out to us on the trees!” he screamed to Adalbern who had brought his men to the river’s edge for a closer-ranged attack. His father let loose a spear with his long, strong arm. Berengar watched its path end in the skull of a man on the second row of ships. Others of his father’s men launched improvised skiffs to try to board the Roman vessels. Still more men had struck a fire in dry tinder on the bank, using it to set fire to torches which they hurled at the ships.
That’s when the boy saw the very same Roman officer he had fought hand-to-hand at the bank of the Rhenus earlier that year. It was the same centurion who had stood so calmly as the Sugambrian cavalry charged day or night at the retreating cohort. The man shouted to his men, who snapped at his every word. The officer stood fearlessly exposed as death rained from the shores. He seemed not to notice the potential menace. Instead, the officer locked eyes with Berengar, obviously recognizing the boy. The man seemed ablaze with controlled fury.
His men began to hoist their long shields out of their protective leather sheaths to form a wall against the onslaught. “Testudo! Testudo!” the centurion shouted again and again. To Berengar’s surprise, many of the men in that second line of ships heaved their shields over their heads. It was in this manner that the Romans protected not only their front facing the bank with the interlocking shield wall, but also formed a defensive roof. The officer returned his attention to the men now huddled under the covering.
Berengar slashed his sword across a legionary’s face, just striking his nose. The soldier’s head recoiled in reflexive pain so the boy took the opportunity to drive the blade into his chest just above the neck of his chain mail. The man wasn’t dead yet and so Berengar drew back to stab at him again, but another Sugambrian was pushed back into him. The boy toppled to the deck over top of a twitching countryman.
&n
bsp; In panic, the boy clawed at the vessel’s bulwark to right himself. He forgot about his opponent for a moment as his head poked above the hull. He shouted to Adalbern again, “More men, we have the advantage! Send more to us.”
His father could not hear him. The crash and cries of battle drowned his voice away as it had not yet come into its full manhood. The boy bit his lip until it bled thinking that his father would know to send more men since he had been fighting for years. His father would know. At the very moment the boy turned to face more Roman foes, he heard a frightening sound followed by a flash. A bolt as tall as a man and the diameter of a strong arm tore into the men at the bank. Three were impaled on the fierce weapon before its forward momentum finally came to a halt. Adalbern himself was knocked back by the instantly dead men’s flailing arms.
Berengar shook off his panic and turned to the battle once again. He became terrified for the second time in as many heartbeats. Legionaries from the second line of boats, led by the fearsome officer, began leaping aboard the two disabled ships which were stuck against the trees. Their numbers seemed to be unceasing. They fought with controlled ferocity such that Berengar had never seen. Even in those tight spaces between the sides of the ship and atop the beating planks, the men stabbed, cut, and advanced like they were different parts of the same body. They were one.
His men were falling. He needed help or their advantage would irretrievably disappear. Berengar waved his arms, not caring about the danger he brought to himself. His father still did not take note. The bear of a man was reorganizing his forces against the shocking attacks the Romans sent in those fat bolts. Sugambrian men all along the river were dying with gaping tears in their flesh from the missiles shot from the strange looking machines at the prows and sterns of the navy ships. The general’s flagship in the center of the melee, with its superior crew who were more efficient than the other ships’ crews, had piles of wounded tribesmen floating nearby. Empty skiffs splattered with blood floated with the current, bumping and twisting off the armada’s hulls.
Berengar squinted to look downstream. None of the Roman vessels had caught on fire. Several smoldered where their men had been momentarily delayed in stamping out the torch flames. But the sails had been furled and so made a bulkier, denser target that wouldn’t so quickly burn. Further back, the boy saw that Stigr’s logs, not having the chance to be strategically placed like those upstream, had already been chopped through by the rearmost Roman ships. The trees slipped away downstream. Some of those rearmost ships had moved to the shore and were disembarking their men to attack the tribesmen. Without any other way to get the Sugambrians aboard the invaders’ ships and with his army no doubt running out of spears, the boy’s soldiers would be forced to withdraw.
It was not to be a loss. They had inflicted great damage on their adversary in a short period of time, but it was time to be wise and save the progress they’d made.
“Retreat to the trees,” he shouted to the ten men still on two feet fighting the growing Roman threat. Gundahar took his eyes off the fight and was rewarded with a smack to his cheek with the large round pommel of a gladius. The harelip fell backward onto Berengar who fell to the deck a second time. The two scrambled to their feet and fled to the dam. The other men did the same, but another five were struck down with spears jutting from their backs.
Berengar just put his feet onto the shore when he heard the Roman officer shout, “Claudicatus!” The boy turned to see that several of the legionaries who had scaled across the trees in pursuit, had halted at the man’s command. When he screamed, “Revertetur ad me,” his men growled and returned to the ship. The officer again met Berengar’s gaze, this time waving to the boy with his fingers to his brow. He swore the Roman even gave him a slight bow from of his head.
Adalbern ran past him laughing at their surprisingly swift success, despite the carnage strewn on the shingle and blood splattered on his brow. Berengar spun and fled into the wald with the rest of his people. The Romans had always been confident in their place in the world or confident in their beliefs. It was now the boy’s turn to be secure in his knowledge. Drusus would forever have reason to fear his people.
. . .
Drusus sent many messages from ship to ship as the partial fleet glided downstream. Most of their oars were stowed as they let the current do the work and so the men had much time to reflect on the recent battle. Their commander didn’t want too much of that, or at least he wanted to help shape their thinking, so he sent written accolades to be read aloud aboard the ships in order to recognize men and officers who fought bravely.
When Septimus finished reading aloud the honor given to Naevius for quickly organizing men around one of the light ballista that had its firing crew killed in the first rain of Sugambrian spears, he rolled the parchment page neatly and tucked it into the dead man’s mail. It would be burned along with Naevius when they returned to their winter quarters along the west bank of the Rhenus. Septimus frowned at the loss. He briefly grieved the man, then forced himself to move on to his duty. It would do none of the survivors any good to have their centurion weeping in the field. They were still in what appeared to be hostile territory, and so he focused on whatever tasks he could. And when he did so, Septimus frowned, now having to find a suitable replacement to lead Naevius’ contubernium.
There would be many legionary cremation services alongside that of Naevius following the dramatic Roman victory. His century had suffered six dead and twenty wounded. Many of the wounded would die from the mutilated gashes that had already begun to stink – always a bad sign. The other ships along the line, especially those adjacent to the east bank of the Amisia, had suffered similar numbers of casualties. The two ships in the vanguard that had been left behind, abandoned, broken against the felled trees, each lost over half of their men to the surprise attack that the wicked tribes brought on them from the bow and port sides.
But the legions had not been routed. They had lost many fine soldiers, even some senior centurions, but once they survived the initial surprise, the legionaries began to turn the tide of the battle in their favor. It had been a victory of sorts as they drove the Sugambrians off and freely returned to the mouth of the Amisia unmolested. In these facts, Septimus conceded that their late autumn river cruise had been a success.
But he was a man who loved his soldiers. He loved the men who jumped at his commands. He often barked at them or even slapped them with the flat of his sword, but he hated to see when they fell with no obvious gain to show for it. Had they gained any territory? Perhaps. Had they demonstrated their capability to travel to the heart of Germania? Yes, but their noses were bloodied.
Perhaps, Septimus thought, his Roman army had not driven the Sugambrians off into their wald. It was possible they had planned to strike as lightning – blast the tallest tree in the forest before hastily speeding back up to the clouds. They were led by a capable man, those Sugambrians. The word among the officers was that he was indeed an old warlord who was alive even when Julius Caesar roamed Gaul. It seemed he understood how to fight the Romans on his own terms and not on theirs. Adalbern knew his army’s strengths and fought to them. Most opponents against whom Septimus had fought in the name of Rome were easily drawn into a conflict at a time and place directed by the legions. It seemed that the warlord was teaching important lessons to his tall, thin son. Septimus tried to forget these ideas. They served no purpose.
It was a victory for Drusus and would be told as such to the portion of the fleet he saw ahead waiting in the mouth of the Amisia. The proclamation of victory would be told to the Frisian foot soldiers to whom the fleet had caught up on their retreat – rather withdrawal, thought Septimus. The Frisian draftees would then go home and tell their leaders that they had been wise in allying with Rome. The tale of triumph would be told to the elites of the growing town of Ubiorum. The news would travel to Lugdunum, the capital of Gaul, where Drusus’ young family resided. Finally, news of the conquest would travel ahead of Drusus as
he returned to Rome for the winter to review the year’s progress with Augustus. No matter the bloody details, it was a victory and would be broadcast as such.
It was going to be a cold winter. At least that is what the men surmised when they felt the blustering winds from the Mare Germanicum crushing them in the face when they left the relative shelter of the river. They tarried for just part of the morning as they allowed the anchored ships to row or sail into something resembling a formation. The Frisians continued their march toward the west and their homes. These men had been faithful all season and so Drusus let them march on ahead.
Septimus had forgotten how treacherous this stretch of the journey had been, with the endless mess of mangled trees and roots that seemed to blanket the waters just below the surface. The going was slow as he exercised his men’s backs at the oars. They had gotten quite proficient at the work, having done it nearly every day for almost an entire campaign season. They moved in crisp time. The blades swung and plunged, drove and leapt. But despite their competence, the pace became crawling as the strength of the wind against them increased.
Waves became higher in the shallow waters between the string of islands to starboard and the mainland to port. The ships pitched. The soldiers became soaked with cold water. At first the water came over the bulwarks in buckets, making the men miserable in their grim silence. But eventually the seawater that flew at them changed to an aggravating mist so it felt as if they were pelted with cold, spitting pebbles. Septimus, not entirely familiar with the workings or signs of the sea, wondered why the change when it seemed the wind speed had actually increased. Shouldn’t the waves have gotten higher and the drenching become even wetter?
To the port side, Septimus saw that the fleet had caught up to the marching Frisians. Many of them waved their arms, others both arms. Septimus thought this a unique greeting or farewell, but returned their wave. He quickly saw that they were not merely expressing a fondness for their brothers-in-arms. The Frisians abandoned their weapons on the shore and began splashing their way through the cold shallows toward the fleet. Their arm waving increased. Their shouts, swallowed up by the sounds of the sea and the fleet, meant nothing to anyone. Septimus would have thought the Frisians had gone mad or had changed their allegiances and attacked the fleet if most of them were not empty handed. Several of them did drag logs that they had salvaged from the edge of the nearby forest. Other Frisians grabbed long, pale driftwood as they ran to the armada. The entire scene was bizarre. Many of Septimus’ men, even those rowing, kept an eye on the mad Frisians.